"It's a little strange that most of the regular OT'ers have no clue as to what the final straw was." I suspect there's something "behind the scenes" we may never know about. The OT forum took hardly any resources, especially compared to the galleries. This site makes money from (among other things) banner adds, so the more folks "click around" the more money they make. The more interesting forums and threads they have, the more banner adds people see, the more money 'rosity makes. That doesn't even figure in the loss of sales that occur when members get pissed.